The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Education & Reference

synopsis

Synopsis

Do You Have 21st-Century Skills to Help Your Students Succeed? Do Your Students Have 21st-Century Skills to Think for Themselves? The Power of the Socratic Classroom has the answers you are looking for—answers that will supply the strategies to show students how to succeed into the future. A future that has unknown products, unidentified jobs, and unanticipated challenges. In Socratic Seminar, teachers shift to the role of facilitator, where they help their students develop the collaborative interpersonal skills, the critical and creative thinking skills, and the speaking and listening skills to face the upcoming challenges of the 21st century.

bio

Author Biography

Charles Fischer has taught in public and private schools in a variety of settings, from rural Maine to inner city Atlanta. In the past 20 years, he has worked with a wide range of students from 4th grade to AP English and has been nominated for Teacher of the Year four times. He has his Master’s degree in Teaching & Learning from the University of Southern Maine, and received his B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Binghamton University. His latest book, The Power of the Socratic Classroom, has won four awards, including the NIEA Best Education Book. His first novel, Beyond Infinity, won a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award bronze medal (YA fiction). His areas of expertise are Socratic Seminar, Active Listening, Inquiry, Teaching & Learning, and Critical & Creative Thinking. He is currently working on a book of poetry, a short story collection, and several novels.

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Author Insight

Virtual Close Reading

The general advice for close reading and annotating in Socratic Seminar is to have students annotate directly in the text or to use sticky notes. There are also a couple of effective alternatives: have students place their book in the middle of a file folder or large construction paper and annotate around the perimeter, or have students place a copy of a text in a plastic sleeve to annotate on that. But in the virtual world where students may not even have access to the texts, the classroom, or the teacher, what might you do? The strategy I would recommend is the DRTA. The text is slowly revealed to students with three main questions. Stop periodically and keep asking the same three questions. Students will adjust their reading habits with enough practice and will become stronger, more detail-oriented readers.

Book Excerpt

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

A simple, very effective pre-seminar close reading activity is called the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA). Formulated by Russell Stauffer, the DRTA as envisioned by Lee Gunderson is simple but highly effective. Provide the students with a text, but make sure they can only read it (or see it or listen to it) in small sections at a time, so that they are constantly making predictions. Reveal the title first, and then a few lines or paragraphs and another few lines or paragraphs, and after each section, have the students make a prediction. Ask mainly three questions (save others for later):

• What do you think this story is about?

• What do you think will happen next?

• What made you think so? (How would you revise or change your prediction?)

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Charles Ames Fischer

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Virtual Close Reading

Book Excerpt

The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Comment on this Bubble